Warren Buffett is NOT Insane: Invests $40m in FORMER RV Maker
Crap. You know, I went to Coachmen Industries website to check for a list of RVs. The RV site didn’t some up. Just kept on a spinning, then timed out. And I saw that the main site was all about pre-fab housing. But I thought, oh well, the RV site’s down. But as bluecon points out in a comment below, Coachmen Industries is out of the RV business as of Boxing Day. Doh! But at least TTAC’s Best and Brightest spotted my lack of reportorial due diligence and properly revealed willingness to take Edmunds and Autoblog’s posts at face value. My bad. Lesson learned. And according to previously stated policy, I will not take this post down. Well, not the headline and the comments. The text is toast, ’cause there are limits to my prostration. And props to Warren, ’cause, as Kurt pointed out, this kind of housing is sure to find favor in the coming months and years ahead. Never a truer word was spoken in jest. Oh, and Buffett already owns an RV maker– that bought Coachmen’s assets.
More by Robert Farago
Comments
Join the conversation
@Pch101 & bluecon: bluecon said: Geez Pch, we are living through the actual Keynesian stimulus government boondoggle spending plan. No need to look at ancient history. The stimulus plan has already been in effect for almost a year. Trillions already gone and Obama about to hugely increase it. So far all that stimulus has been spent and the economy continues to worsen. It is like trying to put out a gasoline fire by pouring more gas on it. The Keynesian stuff never works. The old New Deal failed and the new New deal will also fail. Pch said: "The key to government spending is that it has to go into the right places. If it goes only into useless projects that put a lot of money into the hands of very few people, then the money goes into a hole and accomplishes very little. If it ultimately gets spent by businesses and consumers and cycled many times through the economy, then it did its job." As Michael Lewis points out, the "stimulus" offered so far has been sat on by the banks. If you read the articles I posted bluecon, you would not say that one cent of TARP can be defined as stimulus. Now then, like it or not, we are entering a phase of massive deficit spending (not that the Bush administration wasn't all about that as well). The question is one of economic focus, and its going to shift quite a bit. Bush and co entrusted another 700 billion plus to the very people who....well, I am not going to continue that thought. With regard to Paul Krugman, again it is important to read what he has to say. He makes arguments backed by charts and statistics, and along with some other economic historians addresses two significant points about FDR's policies. One, government intervention was neither as deep nor aggressive as was required to stem the depression. But two, FDR had the right idea. Now I am not going to rehash all of Krugman's arguments, but I am going to say that an outright dismissal of well documented, highly structured arguments tells me you haven't read his ideas. It's a shame, but you are about to benefit from them in any event.
PCH, No big disagreements but, the GI bill, even when some of the benefits were frivolous is mischaracterized as a "social program". Also at the time social security was tiny. I think the element causing much of the problem with modern programs is the lack of tying benefits to service to society.
I do like the government sometimes. I think when you label the GI bill as a "social program" you miss the point that the recipients did something to earn it. Something big. They contributed. Modern social programs, other than social security, usually require a victim status, rather than contributor status. Pile on the added injury that they have replaced the stigma with some warped badge of honor for being a victim, and you have a bad incentive. Misplaced incentives are the fastest way to screw up anything. Our government should be constantly reinforcing the idea that there is no free lunch. Even the Salvation Army makes you say grace.